When you are
entering information
into online forms,
including Job
History,
Objectives, Skills
Summary, Education,
etc. you can run
into unexpected
problems if you
copy/paste text
directly from a
previously formatted
Word .doc.

Most resumes are
created in MS Word
.doc format. The
problem is that all
of those nice fonts,
cool bullet points,
little images of
telephones and email
envelopes, bolding,
italics and
underlining can
sometimes look very
different when
copied and pasted
into online forms.
What you see is not
always what you get
with a formatted
resume text. You
don't have this
problem using
unformatted, plain
text. True, it isn't
exciting to look at
but the job site
computer will handle
it much more
accurately compared
to formatted text.

What is the
difference between a
formatted and
unformatted resume?

A plain text or
unformatted resume
means that it
contains:

- no bullets
- no bolding,
italics or
underlining
- no fancy fonts,
colors or any other
enhancement
- the document is
saved as .txt
instead of .doc

Plain text has
universal
application and can
be read by any
software or system.
You do not run the
risk of your data
being garbled when
you paste it into
the online forms.

Defining Your Search
Terms To Specify a
Job Title

- Use quotations "-"
around the job
title: "design
engineer"
- This instructs the
system to find
titles with these
two words together
- Click on the
Advanced Search
Options link to
refine your terms
further
- Other options
offered may include
Location and Date of
the posting
- Save your search
and name it to
identify what type
of job posting it is
- Many of these
sites allow you to
save more than one
job alert
- The larger job
sites all offer
these options to one
degree or another

Create Your Job
Search Agents or
Alerts

- Create a job
search to run
automatically to
send you info about
new jobs as
they are created
- You can usually
specify the
frequency, choose
Daily for optimum
results
- The site will
usually display a
"save as an email
job alert" option
after you
run a job search with certain keywords
- Often, you can
edit these job
alerts to change the
criteria and job
title

Once you have set up
your Job Search
Agent or Job Alerts
on various sites,
you can enter your
email, save the
information and have
new jobs sent
directly to you as
they are posted.
This can free you to
conduct other job
search activities
and not have to go
back to the job site
frequently to check
if there are new
jobs in your field
that have been
posted.

If you set up 10-15
of these job search
agents or alerts on
carefully chosen job
sites you will
create a steady flow
of information on a
daily basis which
affords you
increased
opportunities to
explore.

Boolean Search
Strings - using +
(and), - (not) and :

You can instruct a
search engine
through entering a
search string which
will tell it to
display results that
include (+) and
exclude (-) certain
terms so you zero in
on documents that
you want.

Putting double
quotes around a
phrase
"sales manager"
tells the engine to
bring results that
display those words
in exact order,
together.

To search within a
specific company
site for a specific
title:

sales
manager:xyz.com
- this is an
excellent way to
determine who does
what function in a
target company's
website. You must
use the URL .com or
whatever the
appropriate web
suffix is (.gov,
.org, .ca, .biz,
etc.).

To exclude certain
words from your
results put a space
and a minus sign -
at the beginning of
your search term:
-export sales
manager
will give you
results that include
sales manager but
that exclude the
word exports. You
must put a space and
minus sign and no
space between the
minus sign and the
term to be excluded,
as noted above.

One important point,
do not put your
business email
address as the email
to send your alerts
to as you don't want
to have to explain
to your boss why you
are having all of
these attractive job
postings directed to
your inbox or
desktop!

Companies can and do
frequently monitor
employee in and
outbound
mail, don't
jeopardize your
present position by
being indiscrete.